80% of PlayStation’s Sales In Q1 2024 Came From Digital Downloads

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Sony Benefitted From Digital Sales Last Quarter!

Story Highlights
  • The majority of PlayStation’s sales in Q1 2024 were digital compared to the 20% physical sales.
  • The digital sales were mostly led by network services, especially PlayStation Plus.
  • Sony reported an overall growth in operating income despite low hardware sales.

Sony has released its latest financial report for Q1 2024, highlighting PlayStation’s performance in FY2024. With overall decent results, an interesting highlight from the report is that over 80% of PlayStation’s sales were digital in the first quarter of 2024.

Why it matters: Digital media is becoming more popular than physical discs. While Sony still launches physical copies of all its games, stats show that fans prefer the digital media over physical releases.

Sony PlayStation
The majority of PlayStation sales this year were digital.

For context, digital titles accounted for 70% of all sales in FY2023, so they have seen a 10% increase in Q1 of 2024. Also, this puts the physical sales at a mere 20%. This is yet another instance of how the digital media is taking over.

There is no denying the ease of digital distribution, especially now with services like PlayStation Plus. Sony has stated that the increase in sales is mostly from network services, mainly PlayStation Plus, their subscription service equivalent to Game Pass.

By the sounds of it, PS Plus is thriving. It is still one of Sony’s main sources of revenue in this quarter. The service has certainly improved quite a lot in recent years.

PS5 sales declined this year.

Overall, Sony has reported a 12% increase in sales with their gaming division year-on-year, with operating income increasing by 32%. However, the company has also revealed a decrease in hardware sales despite solid results overall.

In Q1 2024, Sony sold 2.4 million units of the PS5 compared to 3.3 million in Q1 2023. Despite having a rather flat 2024 with not many first-party games to offer, Sony has delivered surprisingly good results.

Sony has the PS5 Pro lined up for later this year, which could help them with the hardware sales. Astro Bot is also planned for 2024, which could also lead to many sales. Overall, Q1 2024 has been decent for Sony despite lower hardware sales.

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